Vol. 15 No. 3, Spring, 2007 - Dutchess County Genealogical Society!

ContentsPresident’s Notes (no room… saved for next issue) -Library Report 1NY military records - mainly Revolutionary War 2Town of Dover record book, 1807 to 1875 4Membership - Did you get the last issue? 4Listings (concluded) 4*********************Library ReportLinda C. Koehler These are new books that have been added to our librarycollection between September, 2006 and February, 2007Dutchess County Genealogical SocietyP. O. Box 708, Poughkeepsie, New York 12602-0708Vol. 15, No. 3 Spring, 2007 1Bruno, Maryann and Elizabeth A. Daniels. Vassar College.Arcadia Publ, c2001. The College History Series. 128pp,laminated softcover, photos, no index. History of the collegethrough use of photographs with extensive captions covering theperiod from the founding of the college in 1861 to the present.Records of the Reformed Dutch Church of Bergen, N.J. nowJersey City. Collections of the Holland Society of New YorkVol. IV. Reprinted from the Holland Society Year Books of1913, 1914, 1915. Baptisms 1666-1788; marriages 1665-1788,burials 1666-1788, members 1664-1788 (each section indexed).Includes historical sketches of the church, the founding of Bergenand its first settlers.We filled in some holes in our collection with three out-of-printtitles published by the Dutchess County Historical Society earlyin the 20th century. They are actually photocopies of theoriginals made for us by the historical society. They include:Reynolds, Helen Wilkinson. Poughkeepsie; The Originand Meaning of the Word. Poughkeepsie, NY: 1924. Moreextensive than the name implies, based mostly on extensiveresearch in deeds and land records, there is information aboutplace names as well as original settlers in the town and city ofPoughkeepsie; discusses Dutch, Indian and English words.Reese, William Willis, compiler. Eighteenth CenturyRecords of the Portion of Dutchess County New York That WasIncluded in Rombout Precinct and the Original Town ofFishkill. Presenting Historical Source-Material RegardingLand and People. Poughkeepsie, NY: 1938. Includesalphabetical list of Fishkill tax-payers 1717-1779, abstracts ofdeeds (1718-1800), mortgages (1754-1800), estates (to 1805), androad acts (to 1788).Roosevelt, Franklin D., ed. Records of the Town of HydePark, Dutchess County. Hyde Park, NY: 1928. Includes minutesof Hyde Park town meetings 1821-1875; information about theStoutsburg Religious Society, Regina Coeli Catholic Church andthe Baptist Society; and information and early vital records of 3churches - the Reformed Church of Hyde Park, MethodistEpiscopal and St. James [Episcopal] Church.----------------------Cassidy, Henry. The Rombout Patent. Dutchess CountyHistorical Society, 1985. Pamphlet, 16pp. “Includingbiographical information on the two original purchasers, FrancisRombout and Gulian Verplanck.”Tompkins, Louise. The History of St. Peter’s ProtestantEpiscopal Church at Lithgow, New York [founded 1801]. ALandmark. 1971. Pamphlet, 27pp.Brittenham, William Robert and Ruth Z. Lewis. The GarterFamily of New York and Michigan. Self-published, 2006.Donated by the authors. Garter descendants lived in Herkimerand Orleans Counties, New York; in Oakland, Ionia, Kent andOttawa Counties, Michigan; and elsewhere.Chisamore, Donald R., transcr. The 1875 and 1891 Diaries ofGeorge K. Taber, Pawling, New York. [2006] Manuscript,168pp. Includes CD-ROM version. Donated by the transcriber.George K. Taber, a farmer of Pawling, NY, was active in his localBaptist Church. Most diary entries of the 2 volumes are relativelybrief. They always mention the weather, record many financialtransactions, and cover major farm chores done. The compiler hasabstracted some of the events for each year into separate lists -funerals noted, notable events of the year, Baptist Churchmembers. There is no index, per se, but Mr. Chisamore doesinclude a list of all the names noted in each diary, with a separatelist of family members mentioned and additional informationabout the Pawling Baptist Church. In the CD-ROM version, aControl-F “Find” command in the text files will search for anyword or phrase entered.---------------------Church record transcriptions done by Arthur Kelly and publishedby Kinship all have the same format, a column arrangement in theoriginal (usually chronological) order with names, dates, andremarks/other information as appropriate for the type of record;all are indexed.Kelly, Arthur C.M., transcriber. Early Records of FirstReformed Church of Fishkill, Dutchess County, N.Y. 1717-1922. Rhinebeck, NY, 2006. Includes various lists of churchofficers, members, ministers, dismissals, notes from Consistoryminutes, and recorded deaths 1837-1916. The numerous“Remarks” have additional detail.

DCGS Newsletter 15(3) Spring 2007 2Kelly, Arthur C.M., transcriber. Vital Records of St. Paul’s(Zion’s) Lutheran Church, Red Hook, Dutchess County, N.Y.1803-1968. Rhinebeck, NY, 2006. Baptisms, 1900-1950;Marriages, 1900 - 1950; Deaths, 1803-1968.Kelly, Arthur C.M., transcriber. Early Records of St. Paul’s(Zion’s) Lutheran Church, Red Hook, Dutchess County, N.Y.1738-1954. Rhinebeck, NY, 2006. Members, 1738-1954;Confirmands, 1846-1960; Officers, 1846-1881; Communicants,1872-1941.Kelly, Arthur C.M., transcriber. Vital Records of FishkillLanding Methodist Church, Beacon, Dutchess County, N.Y.1860-1962. Rhinebeck, NY, 2006. Baptisms of children andadults 1860-1951; marriages 1860-1953; and cemetery plotowners, circa 1879.Kelly, Arthur C.M., transcriber. Early Records of FishkillLanding Methodist Church, Beacon, Dutchess County, N.Y.1862-1933. Rhinebeck, NY, 2006. Includes various lists ofprobationers, officers, class lists, and member lists with manyremarks (usually including marital status).Kelly, Arthur C.M., transcriber. Vital Records of MatteawanMethodist Church, Beacon, Dutchess County, N.Y. 1860-1962.Rhinebeck, NY, 2006. Baptisms of children and adults 1861-1961, marriages 1860-1962, and deaths 1881-1884, 1931.Kelly, Arthur C.M., transcriber. Early Records of MatteawanMethodist Church, Beacon, Dutchess County, N.Y. 1862-1920.Rhinebeck, NY, 2006. Membership records include lists ofprobationers, offices, class lists, members with many remarks(usually including marital status).*********************DCGS LIBRARYNEW YORK MILITARY RECORDSLinda Koehler This article focuses on some of the standard references used inresearching your New York ancestors’ service in theRevolutionary War, covering books and CDs in our collection aswell as some online resources, particularly at Ancestry.com.This is to remind everyone that free access to all Ancestry.comcollections and databases is available at any LDS Family HistoryCenter with on-line computers, including ours here inPoughkeepsie. HeritageQuest Online, available through localpublic libraries that pay for it, also has some of these itemsdigitized. At the end of this article, there is a list of someresources on other wars and time periods available in our library.Note: We have Family Tree Maker CD-ROM #143 MilitaryRecords: New York in the Revolution and the War of 1812(Genealogy.com, c2000) which contains digitized versions of anumber of the titles listed below; it is referred to simply as FTMCD #143.Berthold Fernow was New York State Archivist in the 1880swhen he was directed by the state government to collect togetherall manuscript records held by the state archives relating to themilitary during the Revolutionary War. He found records onabout 40,000 named soldiers. The published result of that effortwas:Fernow, Berthold, ed. New York in the Revolution.Volume XV of Documents Relating to the Colonial History ofthe State of New York. State Archives. Vol. 1. Albany: 1887.(DCGS has a reprint in book form and it is also available onFTM CD #143.)After these records were published, additional RevolutionaryWar records were discovered in the custody of the office of theNY State Comptroller, James A. Roberts. These were mostlyoriginal muster rolls and pay rolls, and receipts for soldiers’ pay.Some of these records were published, with no index, in a first1897 edition. A 2 nd edition with an index was published as: NewYork in the Revolution as Colony and State. Vol. 1, SecondEd. Albany, 1898, “A compilation of documents and recordsfrom the Office of the State Comptroller”. It included all knownrecords on military service then found in the Comptroller’sOffice, as well as some materials acquired from other sources.The original records were then bound together, amounting to 55volumes of manuscripts. Over 60% of them were destroyed ordamaged in a 1911 state library and Capitol fire at Albany.Therefore, for the destroyed records, the 2 nd edition (commonlyreferred to as “Roberts” for the name of the Comptroller listed onthe title page) may be the only remaining proof of service formany Revolutionary War soldiers. Named soldiers numbered51,972, which is still considered an incomplete listing. DCGShas a facsimile reprint in book form of a 1904 printing of thisedition. (The same is available on FTM CD #143. It is alsoavailable as part of HeritageQuest Online, digitized in its originalform; and reformatted as an online database called “New YorkMilitary in the Revolution” at Ancestry.com.)Additional material in the Comptroller’s office which did notrelate directly to military service – like who gave supplies to thetroops, lists of “Forfeited Estates” of Tories, and informationabout the general conduct of the war – had also been found. Akind of condensed history of the Revolutionary War in NYS waswritten based on these records, with some of the originaldocuments reproduced as examples of cited records. This waspublished in 1901 as a Supplement to Volume 1:Mather, Frederick G., compiler. New York in theRevolution as Colony and State, Vol.2 Supplement. Albany:1901. (Available in our library on FTM CD #143.)Miscellaneous original muster rolls and payrolls for New Yorkand other American colonies are part of the collection of theNew-York Historical Society. These were published in 2volumes as part of their Collections of the New-York HistoricalSociety for 1914 and 1915 as:Muster and Pay Rolls of the War of the Revolution 1775-1783. New-York Historical Society, 1916. (Available on FTMCD #143. Also available as the online database “Muster and PayRolls of the War of the Revolution, 1775-1783: MiscellaneousRecords” on Ancestry.com.)The compiler of the Supplement to New York in the Revolutionas Colony and State, Frederick Mather, became interested in therecords of American sympathizers who were forced to flee LongIsland and New York City after the British won the Battle ofLong Island in 1776. The Comptroller’s office held records of2

DCGS Newsletter 15(3) Spring 2007 3the claims made on the state by the refugees for the expenses oftheir removal. Mather collected more names and records on the1776 refugees from other official sources, as well as biographicalmaterial from their descendants and local historians. Thismaterial was published as:Mather, Frederic G. The Refugees of 1776 From LongIsland to Connecticut. Albany, 1913. (DCGS has the HeritageClassic Reprint of 1990 (in 2 volumes) in book form. The 1972reprint by GPC is available on FTM CD #143.)Additional materials on the Revolutionary War in the DCGSlibrary include:Frank J. Doherty, “Colonel Jacobus Swartwout's DutchessCounty Regiment of Minute Men”, NYG&B Record, Vol.120 #2(April, 1989) thru Vol.121 #4 (October, 1990).Smith, Philip H. General History of Duchess County from1609 to 1876 inclusive. Pawling, NY, 1877. Appendix Bincludes lists of signers of the 1775 Association (This history isalso available online in digitized form).Platt, Edmund. The Eagle’s History of Poughkeepsie fromthe Earliest Settlements 1683 to 1905. Poughkeepsie, NY: Platt& Platt, 1905. [General Appendix p.300-310: Signers of theRevolutionary Pledge of Association 1775 in the PoughkeepsiePrecinct; Those who refused to sign; Names of persons in theprecinct of Poughkeepsie whose personal property wasconfiscated & sold during the Revolution.]Peterson, Clarence S. Known Military Dead During theAmerican Revolutionary War 1775-1783. Clearfield Co, 1990(orig. 1959).Hasbrouck, Frank. The History of Dutchess County, NewYork. Reprint 2005, Higginson Book Company [orig. 1909].Hasbrouck has very useful chapters on the Revolutionary War,including lists of Associaters (signers of the Pledge ofAssociation), as well as those who refused to sign.Loyalists]Reeks, Lindsay. Ontario Loyalist Ancestors. Baltimore:Gateway Press, 1992.Fraser, Alexander. United Empire Loyalists. Enquiry intothe Losses and Services in Consequence of Their Loyalty -Evidence in the Canadian Claims. 2 vol. Baltimore: GPC,1994. (orig. 1904).Proof of Revolutionary War service can also be found in:The Balloting Book and other documents relating toMilitary Bounty Lands in the State of New-York. Higginsonreprint, 2004. (orig. Albany, 1825). Among other items, thisbook includes a listing by New York regiment of each soldier'sname, rank, and bounty land awarded (with township name andlot number), as well as another alphabetical list of the personsawarded bounty land and to whom they delivered (sold) theirpatents to the land. Bounty lands for New York veterans werelocated on the Military Tract in the Finger Lakes region ofcentral New York and included the present counties of Cayuga,Cortland, Onondaga, Seneca, and parts of Oswego, Schuyler,Tompkins and Wayne.The Balloting Book does not have an index. Luckily, LloydBockstruck’s Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants Awardedby State Governments (GPC, 1996) indexes the names of NewYork veterans found in The Balloting Book. It is available as anonline database “Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants” onAncestry.com.Pension files, of course, would be excellent proof ofRevolutionary War service. The library has:White, Virgil D. Index to the Revolutionary War PensionFiles. 4 vol. Waynesboro, TN: National Historical PublishingCo, 1995.After New York came under British control in 1776, Brigadier-General Oliver De Lancey raised 3 battalions of Loyalists for theBritish defense of Long Island. The New-York HistoricalSociety published De Lancey’s Orderly Book covering 1776 to1778. This publication also includes a list of Loyalists living inNew York City from 1776 to 1783, based on contemporarymanuscripts and newspapers. These records were published as:Orderly Book of the Three Battalions of LoyalistsCommanded by Brigadier-General Oliver De Lancey, 1776-1778. [with] List of New York Loyalists in the City of New YorkDuring the War of the Revolution. New-York Historical Society,1917. (1972 reprint by GPC available on FTM CD #143.)Additional books on Loyalists in the DCGS library include:Vincent, Gerald R. The Civil Sword. James Delancey’sWestchester Refugees 1776-1785. Duncan, BC, Canada:Cobequid Press, 1997. This is about Loyalists who served withthe British, mostly farmers from Westchester, some fromDutchess County, and most of whom moved to Nova Scotia afterthe war.Bunnell, Paul J. The New Loyalist Index. Bowie, MD:Heritage Books, 1989.Coldham, Peter Wilson. American Loyalist Claims. Vol.1.Washington, D.C.: NGS, 1980.Crowder, Norman K. Early Ontario Settlers. A SourceBook. Baltimore: GPC, c1993. [includes official documents onHeritageQuest Online has digitized images of the originaldocuments that are indexed in White’s Index to RevolutionaryWar Pension Files. The advantage of White’s index is that it isan every-name index to the pension files, while the onlinedocuments are only indexed by name of pensioner.Finally, lineage societies, such as the Daughters of the AmericanRevolution (DAR), have extensive records on military service.Some resources in our library include these titles:DAR Patriot Index Centennial Edition. Washington:1990.3 vols. c1994. Indexes men & women whose service in theRevolution has been established by the DAR. Data extractedfrom original applications for membership in DAR in addition toname may include date and place of birth & death, name ofspouse, rank & type of service, if pension papers are known toexist.DAR Patriot Index. An Index to the Spouses of the DARPatriots. Published by National Society of the Daughters of theAmerican Revolution. Washington:1986. This volume indexesonly the wives of male patriots whose surnames are provenbeyond reasonable doubt and were documented as of December1984. (Does not include spouses named in a 1982 Supplement tothe Patriot Index.) This index is used to refer to the main entryunder the patriot’s name.3

DCGS Newsletter 15(3) Spring 2007 4Other Resources for Military ResearchNew York Colonial Muster Rolls, 1664-1775. Reprinted in2 volumes, by Clearfield Co., Baltimore, 1999. (Originallypublished as Second Annual Report of the State Historian of theState of New York, Appendix H, Albany, 1897. And as ThirdAnnual Report of the State Historian of the State of New York,Appendix M, Albany, 1898). Digitized on FTM CD #143.De Lancey, Edward F. (ed.). Muster Rolls of New YorkProvincial Troops 1755-1764. Heritage Classic reprint, 1990.(Originally published as part of Collections of the New YorkHistorical Society, 1891)Revolutionary Pensioners of 1818. Baltimore: SouthernBook Co, 1959 (originally published 1818).Index of Awards on Claims of the Soldiers of the War of1812. Reprinted With an Added Introduction by BrigadierGeneral Francis J. Higgins, Adjutant General, and an errata listby GPC, Baltimore, 1969. Reprinted Clearfield 1994. (Orig.publ. by New York Adjutant-General's Office, Albany, 1860.)Digitized on FTM CD #143. Also available as a database “NewYork Military Equipment Claims, War of 1812" onAncestry.com.White, Virgil D. Index to War of 1812 Pension Files. 3vol. Waynesboro, TN: Nat. Hist. Publ. Co, 1989.White, Virgil D., transcriber. Index to Old Wars PensionFiles 1815-1926. 2 vol. Waynesboro, TN: Nat. Hist. Publ. Co,1987.The Pension Roll of 1835. Indexed Edition in 4 Volumes.Baltimore: GPC, 1992. Originally publ. by U.S. War Dept,1835. 4 vol.CD-ROM Roll of Honor: Civil War Union Soldiers.Broderbund Software, c1996. (FTM Family Archives CD#351.)Orig. publ. by Genealogical Publishing Company. (Arranged byplace of interment as burials were inventoried). Names ofSoldiers Who Died in Defense of the American Union Interredat.... Vol.1-27. The Final Disposition Vol.1-4. TheUnpublished Roll of Honor.Callahan, Edward W., compiler. List of Officers of theNavy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to1900. NY: L.R. Hammersly & Co, 1901.Powell, Col. Wm. H., comp. List of Officers of the Army ofthe United States from 1779 to 1900. NY: L.R. Hammersly &Co, 1900.Heitman, Francis B. Historical Register and Dictionary ofthe United States Army, from its organization, September 29,1789 to March 2, 1903. Washington, DC: GPO, 1903. 2 vol.Ancestry.com has an extensive collection of military records onlinefrom the colonial period through the Vietnam War. Just afew databases are:WW I Draft Registration Cards 1917-1918 (excellentsource for men born 1873-1900).New York Civil War Records (79th and 80th Regiments).General Index to Civil War Pension Files.*********************Town of Dover record bookValerie LaRobardier The Dutchess County Town of Dover kicked off its bicentennialcelebration Saturday, February 24 th , with a ceremony including areenactment of the first town meeting that took place 200 yearsago when Dover separated from the Town of Pawling. Therecord book of those meetings from 1807 to 1875 has been in thecare of a series of owners of the Inn. The current owner, DavidWilson, presented the town with this record book. Included withthe gift was a transcription of those records which can now beviewed at the Dover Library in Wingdale, NY. Visit thePoughkeepsie Journal web site for more (but the picture captionshould say David Wilson gave the record book to Jill Wray!)http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007702250347***************************Membership newsRoland B. Ormsby, Mbrshp Chmn There was a problem with a very few address labels when theWinter issues of The Dutchess (Volume 34 Number 2) andNewsletter (Volume 15, No. 2) were mailed. If you did notreceive these please advise me at orat the DCGS address shown on the top of this newsletter. Wewill send a replacement.Membership listings (concluded)(Membership listings are not included in web version.)4